


i'm not gonna write you a love song

by glimbows



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M, leads up to perfect harmony. a bit of a luke char study bc it's all i can write, luke can't write love songs until he meets julie...., me banging pots and pans: SOULMATE BOND, my excuse to write juke and willie and rayla in one fell swoop, willie and kayla are mentioned! and lukealex is past
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2020-12-01
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:35:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27827623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glimbows/pseuds/glimbows
Summary: Luke Patterson is not a love guru, and he’s not pretending to be.He’s a romantic as in a romanticizer. He’s flirtatious as in once he realizes that what he’s doing is flirting, it’s usually too late to backtrack. He’s never successfully written a love song unless you count the one part of Bright written about Alex’s eyes back in ‘93, and he doesn’t.So basically, there's no one more unqualified to be giving his boys romance advice, but that's not going to stop him.or,Two times Luke helps Reggie and Alex with their crushes and one time he's forced to confront his own.
Relationships: Alex/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Willie (Julie and The Phantoms), Julie Molina/Luke Patterson, Kayla/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Comments: 19
Kudos: 252





	i'm not gonna write you a love song

**Author's Note:**

> sometimes we write during finals prep week to cope 
> 
> title is from miss sara bareilles' iconic hit, though the message of the song kind of negates the story here. we're going to ignore that for the aesthetic 
> 
> enjoy!

Luke Patterson is not a love guru, and he’s not pretending to be. 

He’s a romantic as in a romanticizer. He’s flirtatious as in once he realizes that what he’s doing is flirting, it’s usually too late to backtrack. He’s never successfully written a love song unless you count the one part of  _ Bright _ written about Alex’s eyes back in ‘93, and he doesn’t. 

And honestly, Luke’s really not interested in playing Cupid. It’s just that Reggie’s crush is so  _ pathetic _ he feels he’s got no choice but to intervene. 

It’s the sake of his friend. And for the sake of the band if they ever hope to hear a bass lick again. 

“Dude,” he taps his pen absentmindedly against the spine of his notebook. “The first step to all this is calming down. You’re working Alex’s catwalk right now.” 

Reggie’s eyes blow wide in acknowledgment, gaze fixing briefly on his feet before he plants them in place. “Shit, Luke, I dunno. It’s just so,” he groans several times, the pitch rising and falling for emphasis. “ _ —frustrating _ . I feel like if she could see me, we’d have totally hit it off by now.” 

“What makes you say that?” 

“Sorry, did you not see the way she grinned at me during our pep rally performance? There were sparks, man! Sparks!” 

“Must’ve missed it,” Luke shrugs. If his eyes weren’t on the crowd, they were likely on Julie and her belting stance. “But I’ll take your word for it.” 

He hopes they’re talking about the same girl. Reggie’s reputation as Sunset Curve’s resident flirt seems to transcend even death. Still, while it may be enhanced by the fact that they’re pretty much invisible now, Luke’s never seen him this worked up over someone. Purple Dirty Candy must have a really nice smile under that moody stage persona. 

(Or, it’s the moody stage persona alone. He’s the frontman, he can dig it.) 

“That’s what makes it so frustrating, though!” Reggie starts to get animated again, his hands doing more talking than his lips. “It’s not like you and Julie. At least she can see you.” 

Luke somehow manages to keep himself from dropping his pen. 

“What’s that mean?” 

“Uh, exactly what it sounds like. You can see each other. That usually makes it a lot easier to flirt with someone,” 

“We’re not,” he makes sure to shut his notebook. Having it open right now makes him feel naked. “—we aren’t flirting. Aren’t we tryna solve your problems here?” 

The bassist stares at him for a second too long.

“Look, do you even know this girl’s name?” 

“Kayla.” Reggie’s face falls into a slight pout. “That’s what Carrie called her, so I’m just assuming—“ 

“That it’s her name, yeah. Okay, that’s the first step. Y’know anything else about her?” 

“She’s a dancer, she’s in Dirty Candy, she... likes purple?” 

Luke shakes his head, standing up from the couch to lean against the arm. “Nope, never mind, stupid question.” He should hope that’s all Reggie knows about her considering they’ve never spoken. “How about this: keep seeking her out in the audience during shows. Throw her a wink. Do whatever the hell it is that you do.” 

Reggie’s pout only deepens. “How’s that gonna help me?” 

“It’ll keep reminding her you like her. You’ll make her feel special. That’s nice, right?” 

He tries his best to read his bandmate’s face. There’s no easy answer to all of this, especially when there’s a regular girl involved. Kayla can’t see them like Julie can. She isn’t special in the way Julie is special. And as much as that sucks for Reggie in the long run, it doesn’t mean he can’t entertain the idea before it runs away. 

Luke claps a hand to his back, raising his eyebrows. It’s a sight Reggie can’t help but smile a little at. 

“I guess that’s all I can do, huh?” 

“Don’t gimme the long face, bro!” Luke shoves him in a place where he knows he’s ticklish. “Soon everyone at that school’s gonna be talking about how the bassist is totally flirting with her.” 

Reggie brightens a bit, nodding before he allows himself to flop down on the couch. “That does sound pretty sweet.” His eyes dreamy and curious, eventually land on the closed notebook currently occupying the coffee table. “Hey, what were you working on? It’s usually impossible to interrupt you when you get in one of your grooves.” 

“Well, I wasn’t in a groove.” There was something in his head he wanted to say, but he just couldn’t fucking say it. He couldn’t find the right words. Luke leans down to sweep up his notebook and promptly tucks it under his arm. 

“You okay?” 

“Yeah, fine. Just messing with something and it didn’t work. Happens to the best of us.” 

“Totally. You’ll get it, dude.” He can see by the look on Reggie’s face that he’s drifting, probably to a land far away where he and Kayla are sharing a milkshake with two straws. 

And that’s okay. That gives him more time to himself, and more time to face the scribbled out pages in his notebook. 

It’s so juvenile, but nothing rhymes with Julie. 

/ 

When Alex talks about Willie, it’s different. 

Not different in the sense that Luke knows what to do in terms of advice, but different as in Willie is significantly more attainable than a lifer like Kayla. And Alex, bless him, is incredibly bad at keeping his feelings on the down-low. 

“How’d you like… know?” He asks a few hours after they return from the Hollywood Ghost Club. Luke’s mind is muddled with the thought of Julie storming out on them, and he accepts Alex’s bait to change the subject  _ only _ because it’s Alex. 

“You’re as subtle as a tractor-trailer, man.” 

“That’s fair.” Alex blushes, prompting Luke’s first real smile of the day. 

The truth is, he can’t chalk it all up to the drummer being emotional. Luke’s had the inside scoop on his flushed cheeks since the summer of ‘94 when they finally got over themselves and indulged in a few months together. Not to pat himself on the back or anything, but Alex is acting the same way now that he did when they were beating around the bush. 

“But I meant what I said at the club about being happy for you. You’re really showing off, finding a date like, three days into your afterlife.” 

“Yeah, well, as Flynn says,” he takes a breath like he’s preparing to start a monologue. “—there’s no one doing it like me.” 

“Between her and Willie teaching you slang you’re getting really dangerous.” 

Alex laughs again, but there’s less joy to it than before. His eyes don’t crinkle and he barely flashes his teeth. It could all be because they’d royally fucked up with Julie, which is he is still very much thinking about as he attempts to make a list of damage control ideas in his notebook, or it could be a number of other things. Honestly, he’d kind of lost track of Alex once he started dancing with the twins. 

He begins to take out whatever he’s feeling on his drums, playing significantly louder than he should be considering Ray and Carlos are trying to sleep just next door. And Luke’s not normally a stickler about that stuff, but the last thing he needs is for Julie to be angry with them about their noise level, too. 

“Dude,” he sits up in his chair, brows furrowed. “Dude, we gotta keep it down. No one’s supposed to be out here.” 

Alex looks at him as if he’s noticing him for the first time. “Sorry. I, uh, kinda got away from myself for a second.” 

“What’s wrong, dude? Is it the thing with Julie? ‘Cause just wait, I got a whole list of—“ 

“No, no! I mean, yes, that’s part of it. The whole night has just been kind of crazy, man. First the club and Caleb and… all of that, and now Julie. It’s just stressing me out.” 

“Did something else happen with Caleb?” 

He has his suspicions, most of them regarding the stamp and the way it burned when it was etched into his wrist. But when Alex doesn’t bring up that or the jolt that rocketed through them, Luke also refrains from doing so. Solidarity and all that. 

Alex’s eyes wander back towards his drum set, and he taps absently at one of its cymbals. “Not necessarily Caleb, but…” he looks up to make sure Luke is still listening. Sure enough, there’s an intimidatingly intent look etched across his face. “He got me to dance with those guys? And it was nice of him, but,” 

“But you wanted to dance with Willie.” 

“...yeah. And I just, I don’t know, he looked like he got upset with me.” 

_ Boy, does he know the feeling.  _

“It’s just a misunderstanding, Alex,” Luke says as he slumps back in his seat and readjusts the notebook on his lap. “I saw the way he was lookin’ at you. He’ll be more than happy to hear you out the next time you see each other.” 

“You think so?” 

“I know so, dude.” What else can he say to the hopeful lilt in the drummer’s voice? 

More resolute than before, Alex nods, setting his drumsticks down as he prepares to move up to the loft for a bit like he does every night. Before he goes, though, he gives Luke’s shoulder a squeeze. 

“Try and rest, okay? I know we don’t like, need sleep anymore, but… worrying about the Julie stuff for hours isn’t gonna do you any good.” 

Luke grips the edges of his notebook a bit tighter. He knows damn well he won’t be able to write like this. Nothing coherent, anyway. Any frustrated tirades of ink will have to wait until Julie’s back in the band and this is all a memory. 

He blinks to let Alex know he’s heard him and listens to the sound of him climbing up to the space above. 

And then it’s quiet, for the most part. It’s calm like the way the coast is calm before a storm: eerie and still. 

There’s something sparking up inside him, and if he ever earns back the right to hear Julie sing again, it may just explode. 

/ 

Luke doesn’t really know where to go from here. 

He knows he’s in love with Julie. He realized it live on stage for everyone to see. But he’s starting to think realizing it, accepting it, feeling it— was the easy part after all. 

This isn’t like Reggie and Kayla, where there’s no hope. And it isn’t like Alex and Willie, where there’s a little too much. They’re somewhere in between, hovering between the world of the dead and the world of the living. It’s just a constant reminder. 

The chatter of Los Feliz echoes in the back of his head as he poofs back to the garage. His attempt at confessing had been a total bust. Everything he’d rehearsed fell away the moment she turned to him, her head cocked to the side, the face of a goddamn angel searching him for something sensical. 

And then came the  _ nerves _ . 

Luke wants to smack himself with the same hand that boyishly scratched the back of his neck. And then he wants to use the other to smack himself for chickening out and allowing that goofy Nick to usurp his spotlight. 

The thought of them preparing to dance together makes him about as nauseous as he supposes a ghost can get, but it also motivates him to pick up his notebook again. He flips through the pages with purpose, searching for a draft of  _ whatever the fuck  _ you could call the song he’s been trying to get down for weeks. Even now, he has no idea what it’s trying to be. All he knows is that it’s definitely, one-hundred percent supposed to be about Julie. And since that’s the case, he has to write it fast, get it out of his head and tell her how he feels. 

But no matter how hard he tries, he still can’t find anything to rhyme with Julie. He still can’t write anything that doesn’t sound like some cheesy poem from second grade. He still can’t fucking write love songs. 

He hates what this is doing to him. After Jo in eighth grade, and Madeline in ninth, and Bella in tenth, and  _ Alex _ , he swore off even trying to write love songs. 

He hates the fact that he’s so bad at writing them. He hates that they reduce his lyrical genius to rhyming names and nauseating cliches. And he hates the fact that Julie, the first girl he’s ever really been in love with, is a whole world beyond his reach, which is exactly what makes his love song writing capabilities so important. 

Nick, dapper and tangible, can twirl her around a dance floor. He can hold her close and murmur into her hair and trail his fingers down her arm ‘till they twine their hands together. Luke can’t. 

It’s their music that connects them. It’s their lyrics that make him feel like he’s known her forever, and the way she holds her mic out for him that fills him with a warmth reminiscent of two arms wrapped tight around his middle. It’s all he’s ever wanted, that connection. That perfect harmony with someone else. 

And it’s like something clicks in him. 

He doesn’t need anything flowery. All he needs is Julie; her magnificence, and how it moves him to finally touch his pen to paper with diligence. If he’s as honest as possible with their story, because it is a love story, he’ll have the perfect love song. He can finally make sense of everything they’re facing. 

_ Step into my world  _

_ Bittersweet love story ‘bout a girl  _

_ Shook me to the core  _

_ Voice like an angel  _

_ I’ve never heard before  _

It flows from his pen so freely, so fast that his handwriting looks worse than ever. Luke can’t find a second to care, though, so long as it’s legible to him. 

He doesn’t know how long he sits like that, hunched over and scribbling like a madman, but she’s set something free in him that’s been festering since he recorded that demo she was meant to play. Luke feels Julie like she’s beside him, like she’s wedged herself into his very soul. 

It’s what’s been missing. It’s what’s been there all along. 

Reggie and Alex come and go, workshopping riffs and poking fun at him. The afternoon passes by in a blur, for the most part, all until the garage doors swing open yet again to reveal Julie, perfectly curly hair now half-up in a bun. 

“Shouldn’t you be getting ready?” 

“What?” Luke says unintelligently, an arm over his notebook. 

“Don’t tell me you made all that fuss at school today for nothing. People are gonna start showing up in forty-five minutes. Have you seen my makeup bag? I think I left it out here when Alex asked to see my eyeshadow.” 

“Makeup bag?” 

“It’s probably up at the house.” 

Julie bustles by, searching the couch regardless. Luke feels his lips twitch as her curls fall over her bare shoulders. It makes him wish he could caress her like that. The next best thing sits before him on paper, notebook promptly shut when she glances over the coffee table. 

“How’d your dance go?” 

He swears her stride stutters for a moment. Does that mean Nick is as  _ bad _ a dancer as he said? Is it  _ bad _ to silently hope for that? 

“It was fine! Pretty sure I’ll be getting an A, so, no complaints!” She smiles like there’s a secret caught under her tongue. It makes him grin, too. “No time to talk about that, though. Like I said, forty-five minutes! Be ready!” 

“You got it, boss.” 

She turns to leave but stops just as she makes it under the doorway. As if some invisible string is pulling her, Julie turns her head. The secret-keeping grin has been replaced with one he can’t quite place. 

“What were you writing?” 

“Uh,” he spares a glance down and the first draft of  _ Perfect Harmony _ stares back at him. “Nothing. Y’know, just messing with some stuff.” 

“Huh,” 

“Yeah.” 

The smile quirks up and confirms once again that he’s a goner. 

“See you in… well, now it’s forty-three minutes.” 

She hums as she goes, the sound so sweet and so strangely recent. Almost as if he’d just written it himself. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you couldn't tell, the further into this piece i got, the more unhinged i became. but that's writing, baby! 
> 
> don't forget to leave a comment if you liked. don't forget to stream perfect harmony on repeat so we get a season 2 and luke can finally find out about it. seriously, i need to know 
> 
> shoutout to my wife @spellbelle for beta-ing this with minimal cursing this time. she's the best! 
> 
> i'm kitty, you can always find me on tumblr screaming about jatp @ollydobson. stay safe out there!


End file.
